RSAP Panel on Periodicals and the Working Class for ALA (San Francisco, May 24-27, 2012) abstract submission due Jan 16, 2012

The Research Society for American Periodicals will organize a panel at the annual conference of the American Literature Association. The conference will be held May 24-27, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency (Embarcadero Center) in San Francisco, California. For further information about the conference, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org.

DEADLINE JANUARY 16th, 2012

Consider periodicals such as The Messenger (founded as the official organ for the Pullman Porter's Union) to the Worker's Daily - What role have periodicals played in forming and re-forming class consciousness among the working classes? What unique methodological challenges do working-class periodicals pose? How do working-class periodicals expand our understanding of readership and activism, labor and literary culture? How does literature or literary criticism in The Partisan Review or The New York Review of Books shape our understanding of the high-brow or low-brow audiences? What brow is the New Yorker, anyway? What are the challenges & possibilities for teaching material that concerns working class issues from highbrow sources? Conversely, what in various working class periodicals was designed explicitly or implicitly to teach? We seek submissions concerning any aspect of working-class magazines, newspapers, or periodicals in any form.

Send one page abstract to sashton@clemson.edu with RSAP PANEL SUBMISSION in the subject line, thanks.